Chapter 163 – The Cross
Eli
The cabin is steeped in Ronan. Smoke and leather, heat and steel, the bite of his scent so thick I could drink it. He’s the first thing I expect to see when I step inside, and he is there, tall, broad, impossibly desirable. But what steals my breath isn’t him.
It’s the thing behind him.
Not the Sunday-best kind. Not a church relic. This one is stained dark, bolted into the floor, arms stretched wide in a shape that whispers surrender. It looks like it grew straight out of the wood of this cabin, like it was always meant to wait for me.
I freeze. My heart jumps against my ribs hard enough to bruise. “What the fuck is that?”
“A gift,” Ronan says, voice low and rough velvet. “And a test.”
I huff, my bravado catching in my chest. “That’s one way to say torture.”
He steps closer, his shadow wrapping me whole, eyes burning like banked gold. “Not torture. Devotion.”
His head tilts. Firelight turns his eyes molten. “You’ll be the one to tell me what it feels like.”
My mouth works though my throat is dry. “Are you at least buying me dinner first, or is foreplay optional now?”
His hand rises, calloused fingers brushing my jaw, turning my face toward him like I’m something he owns. His thumb presses against the corner of my mouth until I part my lips. “Dinner won’t satisfy you. This will.”
My throat works around the lump of anticipation. The bond thrums, sly and dangerous. My wolf doesn’t fight him. Doesn’t snarl. It sighs, it leans, it wants. And so do I, despite every ounce of sense I’ve ever had. “Then show me,” I say.
Clothes peel away like they were never mine to keep. His hands are ruthless and steady, stripping me down to bare skin until I’m prickling under the weight of his gaze.
He takes my wrist, turns me, presses me against the cross. The wood is cold and unyielding. Straps catch around my wrists, tighten until my breath falters. Ankles next. Four points. Spread wide like a sinner nailed to his new religion.
I test the hold, but there’s no give. A shiver runs down my spine, both terror and want. “You really commit to the scary Alpha aesthetic.”
Ronan’s mouth grazes my ear. “This isn’t for show. This is for you.”
His palm drags over my ribs, down to my hips, claiming each piece of me like an artist sketching on skin. His hand finds my cock, already hard, already traitorous. His thumb teases the head until I gasp. He leaves me empty again, smiling like sin.
The first strike lands before I expect it. A leather lash across my chest, sting blazing bright, then soft heat spreading out from it.
“Count.” His voice is iron.
“One,” I gasp, voice already shaky.
Another lands. Across my stomach this time, and I clench around the pain, holding it, letting it live in me.
“Two.”
The rhythm builds. Crack. Burn. Count. My voice gets ragged, but I don’t stop. He won’t let me.
The air fills with leather and breath and the quiet, obscene noises Ronan makes under his breath. Satisfaction, hunger, prayer. My body sings with it.
Between strikes his hand soothes and taunts. Stroking over welts until they ache brighter. Palming my cock just enough to make me choke on sound, then abandoning me. He circles a nipple with the edge of the strap, flicks it, pinches until I writhe. He bites my jaw, kisses me sharp enough to draw blood.
By the time he pauses, my skin is a canvas of heat. My chest heaves, sweat slicking down my spine. My cock is an ache without mercy, standing helpless, wet and red.
“You look even better marked,” he murmurs, eyes gleaming.
“You’re deranged.” The word cracks into a moan halfway out of me.
“And you’re trembling.”
“I’m cold.”
He knows I’m lying. His hand closes around my cock without warning, the strokes slow and devastating. My back arches, my voice breaks. His thumb presses cruelly over the slit until I gasp. He squeezes my balls until I squirm, then abandons me again.
“Say it,” he demands.
“Say what?”
“That you want this.” His grip tightens.
My lips curl. “Fuck you.”
His smile is all teeth. “Later.”
He leaves me hard and leaking, trapped in the straps while he toys with me. His mouth follows the marks on my chest, licking where the leather kissed me, sucking until the sting turns molten. His teeth scrape the inside of my thigh. Close enough to make me sob. Not close enough to give mercy.
And then he breaks me apart, piece by piece. His mouth is everywhere. Over welts, licking, biting, praising the marks he gave me.
“You’ll take everything I give you,” he whispers. “You’ll hold until I allow. You’ll come when I say.”
I break first. My voice shreds on the plea. “Please. Please, Alpha. I can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“Can’t hold it. Please. Let me come.”
He answers with fingers. Two. Then three. Driving deep, stretching me until slick runs down my thighs. His thumb pins the base of my cock, cutting off the end I’m desperate for. I thrash, cry out, beg. He fills me until I’m open, ruined, starving. Then he replaces his fingers with himself.
The thrust is brutal, punching a sound from my chest. The stretch is a knife of fire. The cross groans as he drives into me, relentlessly pounding until I’m strung so tight I could snap. My cock jerks, untouched, dripping, bouncing with each slam of his hips. I sob for more, for less, for anything.
The straps bite. My body writhes between pain and ecstasy. His hand smacks my ass, twice, sharp enough to make me yelp.
“You’ll break for me,” he growls into my skin, his teeth scraping my bond mark until I arch into the bite. “You’ll break and love me for it.”
And I do.
The orgasm tears through me untouched, brutal, humiliating, blissful. I scream, voice raw, body jerking against the restraints as cum splatters my stomach and thighs. Ronan fucks me through it, claiming, relentless, pounding me until I sob with oversensitivity. Then his hand fists in my hair, yanks my head back, and his mouth claims mine.
He follows me with a snarl, heat flooding deep inside, his body shoving me so hard against the cross I think I’ll splinter. The world narrows to heat and weight and bond.
When it’s over, he slumps forward, forehead to mine, breath hot and ragged. Our breaths stagger in unison, his hand cupping my jaw like I might break. Unbearably tender.
“You’re mine,” he whispers.
I laugh, cracked and breathless. “All that, just to hear me beg?”
His eyes glint, gold and smug. “And it worked.”
“Don’t get cocky. I was humoring you.”
He kisses me again, swallowing the lie. Undoing the straps one by one. Each release leaves me weaker until I sag against him, boneless. He lifts me from the cross, carries me to the bed and lays me down like I’m something precious.
I don’t say it aloud, but the truth sings under my skin.
I treasure the cross. Because every mark, every bruise, every tear is proof of what we are. Not jailer and prisoner. Not Alpha and Omega. Something harder. Something fiercer. Something unbreakable.